Interview with Nexon America’s Min Kim, head of new Live Games division

Game developer and publisher Nexon America has named longtime marketing executive Min Kim as its head of Live Games. Kim has also been elected to the Merchant Risk Council advisory board, a merchant driven organization dedicated to preventing online fraud and promoting secure e-Commerce.

As head of Live Games, Kim will focus on monitoring and managing production, marketing, and communication efforts, working with both Nexon America and developers in Korea. Kim was one of the earliest advocates of free-to-play games, which Nexon pioneered a decade ago and helped turn into a multibillion-dollar business worldwide.

Nexon America has been a member of the MRC for years and, in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat, Kim says he is honored to take a more active role on the advisory board. He says the publisher is committed to the safety of its players and there is considerable focus and effort on both account and game security. Earlier this week, the Korean Herald reported that a hacking attempt on Nexon’s free-to-play massively multiplayer role-playing game MapleStory may have compromised the private data of more than 13,000 players. However, Kim says Nexon is doing very well on the security front.

“Currently, we only require a valid email address and birth date to play our games,” he said. ” Storing payment information like credit card numbers could lower payment friction, but Nexon America decided early on to opt out of this for security reasons. Our business model allows us to do well with the top up model, and we have seen great success with various payment methods including credit cards. However, we are extremely proud of our prepaid card which still falls under my new responsibility in Live Games.”

Nexon recently decided to phase out its prepaid game card for a new one called Karma Koin. Available in $10, $25 and $50 amounts, these new prepaid cards will donate one percent of purchases made to charity. Kim says it’s all about empowering customers with the ability to do good. “The difference is about making a difference,” he said. “When we add all the one percents together, we can collectively do a lot of good.”

The first charity to benefit from Karma Koin purchases will be Charity: Water, an organization that seeks to provide clean drinking water and sustainable water solutions to developing areas. Kim says Nexon chose the non-profit because it does an amazing job of education and empowerment. “Further, Charity: Water donates 100 percent of public donations directly to water,” he said. “We believe they are doing a lot of good, and we are proud to back this very important cause.”